Kenneth William "Ken" Bates (born 4 December 1931) is a British businessman, football executive and hotelier. He was involved in forming the Premier League, the development of Wembley stadium and is the former owner and chairman of Chelsea F.C. and Leeds United AFC.

He spent five years as chairman of Oldham Athletic during the 1960s and also had a spell at Wigan Athletic. In 1982 Bates bought Chelsea. During his tenure he helped the club win a long-running battle with property developers who were attempting to evict them from their Stamford Bridge home. By the end of his reign Chelsea were regularly finishing in the top six of the Premier League, and had won their first major trophies since the 1970s, although they had a debt burden of around £80 million.[1] In July 2003, he sold the club to Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich from whom he received £140 million.

In January 2005, Bates bought a 50% stake in Leeds United, another club struggling under a heavy debt burden. In May 2007, Leeds entered administration, and were relegated to League One. The Club regained Championship status in 2010 and, in May 2011, it was confirmed that Bates had become the sole owner. In November 2012, Bates sold his holdings in Leeds United to GFH Capital.

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Bates was born in Ealing in 1931. His mother died shortly afterwards and his father absconded, so he was raised by his grandparents in a council flat. He grew up supporting Queens Park Rangers but was unsuccessful in pursuing a playing career in football. He made his personal fortune in the haulage industry and later moved into quarrying, ready-mix concrete and dairyfarming.

He was involved with various other enterprises during the 1960s and 1970s, including projects on the British Virgin Islands and in Rhodesia. The Leeds United fanzine Square Ball has published a photograph of Ken Bates with Rhodesian PM Ian Smith during a 1967 tour by Oldham Athletic, when Rhodesia was subject to UN sanctions.[2] Square Ball has reported, having worked with a documentary made in the British Virgin Islands,[3] that Bates attempted to purchase the island of Tortola on a 199-year lease, but was thwarted after protests by islanders caused the local government to change its decision and investigations began by the British government.[2][4] The original agreement to lease the island was known as the Bates-Hill Agreement. Today, a park on Tortola is named after Noel Lloyd, a resident of the island who led the opposition to the agreement.[5]

After having been chairman of Oldham Athletic for five years in the 1960s, in 1980 Bates became co-owner and Vice Chairman of Wigan Athletic with his old business associate Feddie Pye. He provided significant finance by way of bank guarantees that enabled the then manager, Larry Lloyd, to sign a number of players, not the least of which was Eamonn O'Keefe from Everton for £65,000. The Latics duly gained promotion under Lloyd to the Third Division in May 1982.

Later in 1982 Bates purchased Chelsea for £1. When he purchased the club they were in serious financial trouble, as well as being tarnished by a notorious hooligan element among their support. He fought a successful and long-running legal battle with property developers, Marler Estates, who had purchased a substantial portion of the freehold of Stamford Bridge, Chelsea's home ground. He re-united the freehold with the club (and thus secured its future) after Marler's bankruptcy following a market crash, which allowed him to do a deal with their banks and create the Chelsea Pitch Owners, an organisation set-up to stave off future developers and attempted to make the club more financially viable.

Bates spent 21 years at Chelsea, during which time he attracted the headlines on many occasions (many times with the controversial headlines that the club could have done without) and employed no fewer than nine managers.[7][8] His match-day programme notes, in which he often attacked various individuals, were also controversial. In 2002 he was sued for libel by Chelsea supporter David Johnstone after describing fans' group, the Chelsea Independent Supporters Association, as parasites; Bates eventually settled out of court.[9]

During the 1990s, he was involved in a bitter dispute with Chelsea benefactor and vice-chairman, Matthew Harding, over the club's future direction, which led to Harding being banned from the Chelsea boardroom. The dispute was ultimately only ended by Harding's death in a helicopter crash in October 1996. Bates sparked further controversy the following year when he said of Harding, "I don't believe evil should triumph and he was an evil man...This is a much happier ship at Chelsea now he's no longer around".[10]

By the end of his chairmanship Stamford Bridge had been substantially refurbished and modernised, while he had become (at the time) Chelsea's most successful chairman. The club had won several major trophies and were consistently finishing in the top six of the Premiership, even finishing 3rd and just 4 points behind Champions Manchester United in 1999, as well as qualifying for the Champions League with a top-class playing squad containing the likes of Gianfranco Zola, Roberto Di Matteo, Graeme Le Saux, Marcel Desailly and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink. However, its future was threatened by an estimated debt burden of £80 million, yet it was secured against the club's ground, Stamford Bridge. In 2003 he sold the club to Russian oil billionaire Roman Abramovich, for a sum of £140 million making a £17 million profit. Bruce Buck the current Chairman was in charge of the club's sale to Roman Abramovich. After the takeover Bates was investigated by the FSA for allegedly owning undeclared shares in Chelsea Village plc, but the case was eventually dropped.[11] He stayed on as club chairman until March 2004, when he announced his resignation.[12] Within a couple of weeks of his departure he was back in the limelight as he wrote a one off column in the Bolton Wanderers matchday programme, incidentally and somewhat ironically against Chelsea.[13]

Bates was an active member of the Football Association Executive and was involved in the early stages of the project to rebuild Wembley Stadium and was appointed chairman of Wembley National Stadium Ltd in 1997. He resigned in 2001, citing a lack of support from the board.[14] Irked at the lack of progress, he later suggested that the best way to move the project forward was to shoot then-Minister for Sport, Kate Hoey.[15]

In January 2005, after failing in a bid to invest in Sheffield Wednesday, Bates became the principal owner and chairman of then struggling Championship team, Leeds United purchasing 50% of the club.[16] He was quoted as saying that he wanted "one last challenge".

Bates had a dispute with former club, Chelsea, having accused them of "tapping-up" three Leeds youth players, accusations denied by Chelsea.[17] Chelsea in turn reported Bates to the FA for his comment that the current Chelsea directors are "a bunch of shysters from Siberia", an alleged anti-semitic remark about Abramovich, something denied by Bates.[18] Upon hearing that Chelsea had reported him, Bates said "I haven’t laughed so much since Ma caught her tits in the mangle."[19] The FA also agreed with Bates stating that he had no case to answer.[20] His own club Leeds have themselves come under scrutiny after non-league team Farsley Celtic accused Leeds of improperly signing youngsters from them.[21] The case brought against Chelsea was eventually dropped after the two clubs agreed to a settlement privately.[22]

Bates planned to eventually re-purchase Leeds' home stadium, Elland Road, and the Thorp Arch training-ground.[23] However, he failed to achieve either of these objectives during the eight-year period of his ownership of the Club (January 2005 to December 2012).

In May 2007, Leeds went into administration (with unpaid debts of some £35 million, having been reduced from £100m four season before) and suffered relegation to the third tier of English football. Soon afterwards, it was announced that KPMG, acting as the administrator, had agreed to sell the club to a newly formed company called Leeds United Football Club Limited of which Bates is one of three directors.[24] The consortium led by Bates bought the Club back from the Administrators, via offshore companies, for £1.5 million. After the Administration, the Club was considered to be "debt free".[25] Bates became unpopular with groups of fans, and during the summer protests were held at games, demanding that the Chairman should resign. In May 2011, in anticipation of promotion to the English Premier League (not subsequently realised) Bates confirmed, according to the BBC, that he had become the sole owner of Leeds United.[26]

During Bates' time as chairman at Leeds United he has worked with five managers (not including numerous caretaker managers in between managers leaving). Kevin Blackwell was the manager when Bates joined Leeds and was sacked after playoff final failure and a disappointing league position during the following season.[27]Dennis Wise was then hired to replace Kevin Blackwell, but after being the man in charge of Leeds being relegated to League One (for the first time in their entire history), Wise decided to join Newcastle United in a non managerial role despite Leeds' good start to the season (despite a fifteen point deduction).[28]

Gary McAllister was the man appointed to replace Wise, McAllister was able to guide Leeds to the League One playoff final (despite the 15 point deduction) but a 1–0 loss to Doncaster saw Leeds banished to League One for yet another year.[29] In the 2008–09 season Leeds were one of the pre season favourites to promotion and after a good start their form faltered dramatically, and after a run of five straight defeats (including a one nil loss to Histon in the FA Cup), Bates decided to sack McAllister.[30] On 23 December, Leeds United hired Simon Grayson as their new manager.[31]

On 1 February 2012, Bates relieved Simon Grayson of his managerial duties,[32] citing[33] a string of defeats, a disappointment in Grayson suggesting that he was under 'financial constraints', and need for a new voice and direction. Neil Redfearn was installed as Caretaker Manager until Neil Warnock was appointed as permanent manager on 18 February 2012.[34]

On 21 November 2012, Bates finalised a deal to sell Leeds to Middle East-based private equity group GFH Capital, with them gaining 100% shareholding in the club. It was announced Bates would remain as chairman until the end of the 2012–13 season and then become the club president.[35] The takeover, a cash deal worth £52 million, was officially completed on 21 December 2012.[36]

On 1 July 2013 Bates officially stepped down as chairman and moved to the position of honorary president.[37] He was replaced in the role of chairman by Salah Nooruddin. His tenure as president was short lived, however; he was sacked on 26 July 2013, apparently due to a dispute over payment for his private jet.[38]